June 17, 2012

There's the funny (Star-Trek-evoking) name Tribble, and they could forefront some old lady in Georgia who acknowledges that it's hard "to face this kind of thing." And there are those others who "have declined to discuss the matter beyond the closed doors of their homes, fearful that they might be vilified as racists or forced to publicly atone for their forebears."

Said forebears were slaveholders, though the common ancestor was the child of an interracial union that occurred after the Civil War, the former slave who was impregnated lived until 1938 and never said it was rape, the father was probably not the owner but his son (a man "of modest means" who had grown up with her), and some of the descendants say things like "To me, it’s an obvious love story that was hard for the South to accept back then."

The NYT reminds us that former slaves tended to avoid talking about slavery, and: "This willful forgetting pervaded several branches of the first lady’s family tree, passed along like an inheritance from one generation to the next." That is, Michelle Obama herself has nothing to say about her white ancestry.

I can't stop myself from presuming that the editors believe this is a story that will help Barack Obama get reelected. But why would this work? Why delve into racial bloodlines? We've been talking about racial bloodlines with respect to Elizabeth Warren (the Senate candidate with a dubious claim to a small percentage of Cherokee ancestry). But that issue isn't helpful to Warren.

I'm going to theorize that the NYT — like some people on Obama's campaign — would like voters to occupy their minds with the subject of race and, especially, to inhabit the emotional narrative of America's trajectory out of a shameful past. This subject is, at the very least, a distraction from the present-day economic woes that plague Obama's second-term ambitions. But it also has the potential to restimulate the 2008-style "hope," which, for many voters, seemed to imbue Obama with the power to heal America's lost-festering racial wounds.

We're not healed yet. And it's not too late to give up the hope that Obama was the answer... even if the dream of racial healing seems to have deteriorated into hackneyed partisan electioneering.

We're not healed yet. And it's not too late to give up the hope that Obama was the answer... even if the dream of racial healing seems to have deteriorated into a hackneyed partisan electioneering.

The NYT are just purveyors of Permanent Guilt.

I'm coming back to Wisconsin today. One stop I'm going to make next week is the old family graveyard where a great great grandfather is buried alongside three of his kids who died while he was away. I'm not saying they would have lived had he not gone off to fight in the Civil War.

I read that speech, parsing each sentence. I sent the results to my San Francisco sister (yes she's lived there for 50 years, and she's danged sure drunk the Kool Aid).

A close reading revealed a rather thin souffle of cliches, half truths, phony analogies and flat out historical prevarication.

I got lambasted for doing a "cheap lawyer trick" (Did I say she was an academician?).

There's always going to be less to the Obamas than meets the eye. The upcoming story is more of the same old same old. Only problem is that not all of the dogs in the voting public eat the dog food anymore.

". . .a rather thin souffle of cliches, half truths, phony analogies and flat out historical prevarication." That pretty much sums up the Obama political history. The only thing I see missing is the viciousness he brought to all his campaigns -- opening sealed documents, getting others knocked off the ballot, giving the finger to Hillary, etc. Looking back at his history one wonders how good people could ever have been duped to vote for him. It speaks poorly about American voters.

Unless the answer to racial healing is that he inherited it from Bush, I don't think he has it.

Obama is likely descended from whites on one side and blacks who captured and sold slaves on the other. Why would American blacks descended from slaves be giving him any respect at all based on his genetics? If ancestry is what matters, then he should be the one feeling guilty.

What kind of bullshit statement is that? What does it even mean other than " I am not a racist and I am trying to always be nice to black people whenever i happen to see them and I feel so sorry for what was done to them"?

The declaration is nonsense and suggests that blacks are fools and children who need our collective "healing" . Why? What would this "healing" look or feel like and what conceivable difference would it make to the giant underclass we have supported and encouraged to remain unhealed?

Any wounds that are still festering from a white man having sex with a black freed slave 150 years ago are wounds that are festering by choice.

I have no idea how much my ancestors 160 years ago liked each other. I have no idea if one of the men was forced to marry a woman he didn't love, or if one of the women was raped. Whatever happened in their lives is not festering in mine.

It is so odd,the idea that Obama -one man- was going to eliminate the pleasure some get from wallowing in the past.

Your last para is your summation of the NYT's take, right, Ann? Otherwise, read any other way it either makes no sense or is unfortunate proof that you've reverted to type. Tell us it ain't so! Do we have to shout "Come back, Shane, come back!" at this late date?

I cannot embrace the choom. It seems a new word every time I see it like a word that does not fit wherever it appears. Each time I go, oh that. Ch is not a Hawaiian sound so choom is a cute Hawaiian word contrived by non Hawaiians. Therefore my brain rejects it for me automatically going quietly 'this is not a word.' But with your help and with your constant repetition I see that all that can be broken down and the word can find lodgment in there, here and there unsorted, so that it is readily available decades into the future.

We're not healed yet. And it's not too late to give up the hope that Obama was the answer... even if the dream of racial healing seems to have deteriorated into hackneyed partisan electioneering.

"Racial healing" or "getting past race" would be a catastrophe for Democratic party power. A state of permanent resentment must be maintained. Why do you think President Race-Peace spent 20 years in Rev. Wright's church?

I fell compelled to add that by the publishing of this article the left seems to have absolutely no compunction about seizing upon and lionizing the once much-maligned (by all "liberals) "one-drop" rule (if only in reverse) when it is seen to advance their cause/"narrative." No savage irony there, nosiree bobcat..

The only thing I *want* to read from the New York Times - but I know I'll die unsatisfied - is an in-depth report on how the mainstream news media actively worked to ensure the election of the least qualified man ever nominated by a major political party for president, and how 53% of the electorate were epically dumb enough to cast that vote.

Obama is certainly not Jackie Robinson. He’s more Eldridge Cleaver. The grand opportunity America handed him was to repair race relations and actually make America “post racial.” Sadly, that idea was only a campaign slogan. The reality was the opposite. Obama has radicalized race relations in America to create the kinds of tension not seen or felt since the ‘60’s. The charges of racism fly, not so much as indictments but as claims of immunity for Obama’s unfortunate performance in office.Yes, he was unprepared. Yes, he is not nearly so intelligent as advertised. Yes, he has failed to restore faith in the economy. Yet, he may well have been acculturated to believe that someone mentioning these sorts of failures in his life did so based merely on racism. There is a certain codling paternalism to affirmative action and the notion that favored (or diminished) races need a head start and a shorter course and immunity from harsh words.To use race in this way, however, slakes its sting and transforms the word from an imprecation to a common political challenge. Likely, I am not the only one prepared to answer this maneuver by accepting the claim and fighting back on the same terms. The racism claim is demonstrably wrong: Obama was elected. Now, it’s just a fight.

""Racial healing" or "getting past race" would be a catastrophe for Democratic party power. A state of permanent resentment must be maintained. Why do you think President Race-Peace spent 20 years in Rev. Wright's church?"

So true.

Erase racial politics, erase wealth redistribution, erase rent-seeking, and the modern day Democrat Party goes the way of the albatross.

We'd all be better off; more importantly, our descendents would inherit a better America not enraged by racial prevarications, not cannibalized by unsustainable debt, not strangled by suffocating regulations.

@ooonaughtykitty, Sirius/XM radio is not cheap but there's a decent mix of left/right radio. The main news lineup is CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, the main CSPAN channel, "XM Public Radio" with NPR exile Bob Edwards, and NPR itself. There are a couple conservative talk-radio channels, a liberal talk channel, and "The Power" for all your racial healing coverage. The POTUS channel is all politics all the time, and during the recent Wisconsin unpleasantness they did a great job of talking to all sides.

I have it on automatic renewal so top of my head I'm embarrassed to say I don't know the exact price, but I think it's like $13 a month.

I had begun to see a new map of the world, one that was frightening in its simplicity, suffocating in its implications. We were always playing on the white man’s court, Ray had told me, by the white man’s rules. If the principal, or the coach, or a teacher, or Kurt, wanted to spit in your face, he could, because he had power and you didn’t. If he decided not to, if he treated you like a man or came to your defense, it was because he knew that the words you spoke, the clothes you wore, the books you read, your ambitions and desires, were already his. Whatever he decided to do, it was his decision to make, not yours, and because of that fundamental power he held over you, because it preceded and would out-last his individual motives and inclinations, any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning. In fact, you couldn’t even be sure that everything you had assumed to be an expression of your black, unfettered self—the humor, the song, the behind-the-back pass—had been freely chosen by you. At best, these things were a refuge; at worst, a trap. Following this maddening logic, the only thing you could choose as your own was withdrawal into a smaller and smaller coil of rage, until being black meant only the knowledge of your own powerlessness, of your own defeat. And the final irony: Should you refuse this defeat and lash out at your captors, they would have a name for that, too, a name that could cage you just as good. Paranoid. Militant. Violent. Nigger.

Barack Obama, pampered child of privilege and binder up of the nations racial wounds.

And we won't be close to healing until the last of us baby boomers are cold in the grave. My experience is that we are pretty much the last generation for which white guilt has any permanent hold.

Too many seem to be invested in picking at the scab rather than applying the neosporin. Obama promised postracial hope to make us temporarily feel good about ourselves. And then he, Eric Holder, the NYT, etc. everted to type and played up race at every turn to give the permanently aggrieved and white guiltists what they really wanted.

What a bunch is sadists on the one hand and masochists on the other. Sick!!!

The most important element about Barack as well a Michelle is that they made the intellectual decision to totally identify as black. Is there any doubt that decision involved huge amounts of hate directed at their white ancestors. Their racial consciousness is certainly far more central to their mindset than, say, Clarence Thomas's is to his mindset.

"Althouse will vote for Romney because of white guilt. That is, she's voting for Romney because she feels sorry for white people and how they've been treated."

And the soloist from the Perpetual Idiots' Choir shows up.

It is suprassingly obvious that of the cohort of people who are voting because of some perceived or even realized "racial grievance," the overwhelming majority of them, probably nine to one, will be voting for the affirmative-action hire.

It is suprassingly obvious that of the cohort of people who are voting because of some perceived or even realized "racial grievance," the overwhelming majority of them, probably nine to one, will be voting for the affirmative-action hire.

Really? Nobody votes for the white guy because they think whites are getting the shaft? Isn't that right wing populism in a nutshell?

Brown people are taking your stuff!

Maybe not worded quite as pointed. But here in Wisconsin, Walker ran against "Milwaukee". *wink wink* You know who lives there!

It is possible that some Luo from Kenya wound up as slaves in the United States, but it surely could not have been more than a few, if any.Obama and his ancestors just do not have much connection to American, history.

I'm going to theorize that the NYT — like some people on Obama's campaign — would like voters to occupy their minds with the subject of race and, especially, to inhabit the emotional narrative of America's trajectory out of a shameful past.

Shameful, my ass. This country's slave past is the past and it is what it is. Slavery was economic (there were white slaves) so what are we - we here today - going to do about it? Exploiting it is no answer.

We're not healed yet.

"Healed"? Shit. Will you PLEASE stop talking like that? Race is no scar on us - it's just our skins. If you want to look at the attitudes that brought us here (as I tried to show with my link yesterday) fine. There's some (Nazi/NewAge) shit we need to shake off. But this idea that we're hurt, as I'm here talking openly (and not "up") to you is bogus:

And even if they did vote for Walker as some kind of racial bigotry, does voting for Zero because of the color of his skin make it any better , or worse?

I would posit anyone voting for a politician because of the color of his skin is a moron and shouldn't be allowed to vote at all. Would you and the D's go along with that? I'd like to see how many of the black constiuentcy made it past the test. And the white liberals.

Besides, Walker is gonna privatize all the state property, and sell off the deer herd for an orgiastic slaughter for wild white hunters...didn't you hear?

You used to be a good commentator, but you have kinda gone over the edge man... it's not life and death. It's just mouth breathing politicians.

PS

As a disclaimer I think Mittens will be no better than Zero as President. He sure as hell can't be any worse though. My guy was Cain.

Petunia said...The only thing that Obama is the answer to is the question, "Who is the worst, most unqualified president in U.S. history?"

Future generations will look back on the 2008 election results as the most baffling in history. How did 53 million people fall for this man's B.S.?

===========================People with a very superficial understanding of history and the climate and issues of past elections often express "total bafflement" on how Nixon could win every state other than Massachusetts or how a Dubya Bush that people had concluded by 2004 fucked up nearly everything he touched could win relection.

The answers start with the names George McGovern and John Forbes Kerry. How they prevailed over more competent Dem alternatives in the primaries, then their abysmal policies, personalities, and campaigns in the general election.

With Obama, same thing. Look to how black racists, liberal "trendsetters", and Jewish media insiders - that worshipped Obama - took over the Primaries and helped him take out Hillary Clinton. Then look to what an abysmal candidate doddering, war-thirsty, and clueless on the economy.... McCain, was.

Besides, Walker is gonna privatize all the state property, and sell off the deer herd for an orgiastic slaughter for wild white hunters...didn't you hear?

I heard the deer czar Walker hired from Texas thinks public game management is "the last bastion of communism", and people advocating for more public hunting opportunities are "pining for socialism". He also called national parks “wildlife ghettos”. Wowee. Why would Walker hire this guy I wonder?

No he didn't. He was colossally stupid and equally as spiteful right from the start. A vile, petty, and obviously unhappy man. In other words the perfect stock from which to groom a left wing malcontent.

This black man gets tired of national examinations of racial bits and pieces to build whatever. These are good for Discovery Channel documentaries. But not national media. Yuck...

I've spent the past 3.5 years hearing and reading in some circles that black folks practiced bigotry in voting for President Obama. Utter BS since black folks have been practice blind loyalty to Democrats (which trump race) much longer. So when I see stories by the NYT about the First Lady's white ancestors, I just feel that damn spotlight shine all over black folks with the "see look at what has happened based on who you voted for" (another crock of BS since way more whites due to sheer numbers put Obama over the top). Screw NYT and all these punk racial blockheads digging for anything to make "something".

Black America will long regret that their first representative in the Oval Office was an unqualified crypto-communist race baiter rather than a moderate conservative of unimpeachable competence and character.

@Chip, good catch, and one that I missed even though I knew that the Hawaiian language has only 7 consonants (8 if you count the glottal stop) and no diphthongs. And the language writes the 'oo' sound as a 'u'.

A close reading revealed a rather thin A close reading revealed a rather thin souffle of cliches, half truths, phony analogies and flat out historical prevarication.souffle of cliches, half truths, phony analogies and flat out historical prevarication.

Yeah, that's Obama. Crap like that really sucks in the academics. As a group, academics tend to be unusually gullible.

"Black America will long regret that their first representative in the Oval Office was an unqualified crypto-communist race baiter rather than a moderate conservative of unimpeachable competence and character."

Screw that Skookum John. OUR first representative? So President Obama is we black folks President only? So basically we were the only ones that participated in the vote in 2008 since all others rejected him by sitting on their hands and not voting? Ugh... And I didn't even vote for Obama in '08 and still find comments like yours utter BS.

"The idea that various races want to live together is a modern Western concept."

I don't know what we want Jay. My black parents raised me in a majority black neighborhood to just treat everyone like you want to be treated. And I'm living here in rural South Carolina next a Confederate wavin', stereotypical Carolina conservative country boy who considers me his brother more than his own (and I'm not a conservative). But I don't disrespect what he is. So we can live with and next each other. But do we really want to? I do. But I'm not everyone.

In his biography of George Washington Ron Chernow recounts two tales of Washington negotiating with his runaway slaves about conditions under which they might consider returning to Mt. Vernon. One negotiation was successful, and the slave returned after his conditions were acceeded to; the other decided that she would rather stay "free" up in the land of cod and fog, even though she rather missed her easier life at Mt. Vernon.

First, I don't believe for a second people are not racist and sexist. To wit, there are some in insane people who believe falling in love should be genderless. It doesn't work that way, but that is the end game thought to removing the way much of our brain works.

I don't think it is possible to not build associations based on skin color. We are visual, and skin color and sex are strong, visual indicators. I'm willing to bet a lot of people think of the typical black as having a high degree of physical prowess, from the sports and such shown in the media. But that's racist, isn't it? (See Ann's recent note on people over-estimating the homosexual population of the US).

Regarding "healing," there isn't any healing to be done. People suck, and will take advantage of others regardless of skin color in whatever way they can. Almost all of us have some kind of slavery in our ancestry, which is to say we were forced to do things we didn't want to do (sound familiar to anyone?)

And almost all of us have had our human nature manipulated to achieve results that have nothing to do with the human aspect being appealed to.

Meanwhile, I suspect race in America is going to have a very bad turn unless something is done soon. The economic devastation we are about to enter in to (I know, sounds kind of doomsdayish, doesn't it), will be pervasive and wide spread. It's happening in CA in which the ownership class with help from Democrats has imported vast numbers of people who do not themselves, and whose progeny can not, pay for the government services they consume, by a huge margin. And who consume jobs as well. To give you an example, Hispanics in CA now consume 50% of the K-12 budget in CA, at around $30B, alone. The difference between income and state costs will grow. Unemployment will grow. And are Hispanics, who self identify strongly with organizations like La Raza going to want to take care of old whites?

Summarizing:

1) Human beings are visual creatures, and use visual queues to create groups. It is an involuntary act.

2) Economic forces are going to put huge pressure on people to identify reasons they are doing so poorly.

3) Cultures are not integrating, and are split across racial lines. These differences will exacerbate racial tension in the future.

It's going to get a lot worse. I find the importation of Hispanics much the same as what happened with slavery, with the exception that the modern day peon, the taxpayer, is being unwillingly used as a pawn to support the ownership class.

To overcome these issues, our culture is going to have to abandon many of its modern day tenets. Or perhaps it will simply be forced on us.

You know what I have been realizing about our "long festering" racial wounds?

I was taught if you keep picking at a wound it won't heal.

It's one thing to do periodic debriding *if it needs it* -- it's another thing to worry it over and over so it never heals.

This is like some kind of insurance fraud where you get to keep collecting because you continue the 'illness.' Or maybe the race thing has become a form of Munchausens?

The other thing I would like to hear mentioned respectfully is I am sure I have relatives who *died* fighting in the Civil War for, among other things, the rights of blacks, Negroes, people of color, whatever the name du jour is. (My sister is the family geneologist.)

How about a "thank you?"

(And while we're at it, I am part native American only my paperwork is a bit more complete than Elizabeth Warren's and it doesn't amount to a hill of beans except some of my relatives met one of the other relatives when the Mayflower anchored. Do I get a prize? Or do I get to pay reparations? It *does not mean a thing.*)

Some of Mrs. Tribble’s relatives have declined to discuss the matter beyond the closed doors of their homes, fearful that they might be vilified as racists or forced to publicly atone for their forebears.

Since they decline to discuss it -- except behind closed doors behind which this NYT reporter was not invited, why would this NYT reporter opine that these folks fear being forced to publicly atone for their forebears.

--------------------(Credit Rush Limbaugh transcript)CALLER: Rush, Barack Obama ain't never done nothing for black people since he's been in office. He gave the gays marriage; he gave the Latino citizenship. All he gave us was a music video. And, by the way, the music wasn't even that good.

RUSH: (laughing)

CALLER: All right?

RUSH: (clapping)

CALLER: And I want to say something to Americans: The next time they want to do a Jackie Robinson experiment, at least make sure that the guy is an American at heart, all right, that puts American values first.--------------------

"The answers start with the names George McGovern and John Forbes Kerry. How they prevailed over more competent Dem alternatives in the primaries, then their abysmal policies, personalities, and campaigns in the general election."

Bullshit, on stilts.

Both McGovern and Kerry, by sheer dint of experience, were far more qualified for the presidency than Barack Obama.

Obama did *nothing* before becoming president.

Granted, McGovern and Kerry were awful candidates, and would have made horrific presidents, but both were, decidedly so, more qualified for the presidency than the affirmative action hire.

"NYT reminds us that former slaves tended to avoid talking about slavery."

And just what is their authority for that? No one knows what former slaves talked about, because they mostly talked to each other and did not write much down. When they talked to white people, they might have avoided talking about slavery. What would the point be?

One of the interesting things about former slaves immediately after the Civil War was their lack of vindictiveness. There were extraordinarily few instances of vengeance against the former masters, and quite a few examples of kindness and assistance. But mostly the former slaves were trying to find a way to forge a life. That was very difficult, for a multitude of reasons.

If you are white, and your ancestors were in the United States 1840-60, how many stories and legends of that time have been passed down to you.

If he had not, we would have had the second most unqualified person ever to become president, but the lefties would still have been able to feel really good about her anyway, because she's in another approved victim class.

What exactly were Hillary's vast qualifications? Partner in a small town law firm, the ability to make 10,000% profit in one year in her first attempt at the stock market (snicker), stood by her man when he humiliated her time and time again in front of the entire planet, carpetbagged to NY to win a shoo-in senatorial vote, and two undistinguised years in the Senate (she spent the other two running against Obama; they should both have been forced to claim their Senatorial salaries as campaign contributions).

But she also was an admirer of Alinsky (she did her thesis on him), probably inhaled, and headed up the ClintonCare task force.

Whoopee. She's really qualified to be Secretary of State too, as we can see by her results.

In 2008, it was foreordained that the Democrat would win for many reasons. So the choice was Dumbo and Dumber.

Where is this notion of the "shame" of slavery in the past coming from? I know and work with a number of accomplished black people from South Carolina. Most of them are aware, in some way or another, of their roots in slavery, and a few have traced them with care and particularity. They are not ashamed of this heritage. Why should they be?

Early this year, I attended the funeral of the father of a black friend. His father died at age 92, a deeply respected legend in his small community and his extended family. He had worked his entire life as a small farmer, tilling his few acres of land with a mule, and as a worker on road construction gangs. Nearly 300 descendants of this simple man came from all over the United States came to the funeral, and walked into the church in a single procession, after everyone else had been seated. It was one of the most impressive sights I have ever seen.

Believe me, these people knew that their deceased ancestor, and they themselves, were descended from slaves. They felt no shame whatsoever over this. They were proud of their heritage, proud of what they had overcome, proud of the strength, character and pride of their ancestor and proud to be there together to pay tribute.

"Obama, with his incompetence, has confirmed and hardened the beliefs of racists. He may have created new racists."

I hold Obama responsible for a lot of things, but not for this. Racists create themselves. The fact that Obama uses race as a political tool does not require extending criticism of his foibles to an entire race.

I'd like to welcome T-zteel to the board, I haven't seen his postings before.

As for GM, he was a lot more personable before the recall election. Still spouted the leftist dribble, but I recall how people worried about him when he disdappeared for a while.

Now he just spouts talking points.

To GM himself, the guy Walker hired as DeerCzar is one of the most noted biologist in the country. Might at least hear what his report says before castigating him. I read an article about this in Field and Stream just today...changes might have to be made. Not al change is fun, but CWD, and decimated herds already brought down the fun factor.

Here in Kentucky, we listened to the experts and are hunting elk in the biggest herd in the eastern US a full decade before projected.

They feel the need to remind us that Obama is descended from American slaveowners, but no American slaves? I don't actually know if any of his father's ancestors were enslaved while in Kenya, to be honest. Slavery's a different thing in the various African regions, who knows what's in the deep Obama family tree? And for that matter, how would I know if one of my fifteen-times-great grandmothers was a slave in Roman Britain, or a thrall in the primordial Teutonic forests? Such things are lost in time, and perhaps they ought to be, if we don't want to be haunted by the past.

"I hold Obama responsible for a lot of things, but not for this. Racists create themselves."

No they don't. Racists are created by other people. Like the rest of genus Wussicus Dolticus, racists find courage and calling in crowds. Obama has signalled, in many different ways, that racism is fine by him (if it's the right kind of racism, you see). This just reassures and empowers racists of all races. They're all thinking, "see, we were right, [select race] people are horrible."

"The fact that Obama uses race as a political tool does not require extending criticism of his foibles to an entire race."

I didn't see anyone here saying that Obama's race-mongering reflects poorly on black people just because Obama's black. Just on the people who vote for him simply or primarily because he's black.